BEATA.
Title:BEATA.
Author:Unknown
Publication:Todmorden Times
Published in:Todmorden
Date:1862-July-19
Keywords:charity, poverty, religion
Commentary
This anonymous poem appears to celebrate the generosity of a local wealthy woman, and encourages readers to follow her example in giving to the ‘distressed and needy’. Charity is figured as largely the business of women in this piece, and the poem is addressed to middle-class ‘Sisters’, appealing to them to follow the subject’s lead. Charity is also closely aligned with religious morality, and is even assigned a moral imperative laid down by ‘Law Divine’. Published at the beginning of the Cotton Famine, the poem makes a clear distinction between this kind of benevolence and ‘alms’, perhaps in recognition of a sense of the ‘deserving poor’ – industrial workers fallen on hard times. – SR